Last night, I posted this on Facebook, "You shouldn’t put someone or something down to push another person or thing up. It doesn’t help your cause; it just puts more negative energy out in the world. And trust me, there’s too much of that already." This was brought on partly by a post on Facebook asking who the real man was: a boy carrying water buckets or Justin Bieber, but also, by far too many references to "even this love story is better than Twilight" posts. This kind of stuff drives me nuts.

I'll gladly admit that I have a lot of love for Twilight. When it comes to Justin Bieber, I'm not really aware of him as a person, and I certainly wouldn't call him a musical genius, but his songs are cute, and there's nothing wrong with that. I couldn't care less whether or not you like Twilight or Justin Bieber. My point doesn't require that you like either. I just believe that using these sorts of negative comparisons doesn't help. It doesn't put good energy into the thing you're trying to boost up. It doesn't help that little boy to call him a real man in comparison to Justin Bieber. Most people, who see that post, will probably barely think about that boy. They are only liking the picture because they hate Justin Bieber, and afterwards, they are taking that negative energy away with them, not any good energy towards the boy. This helps no one.

Hatred and rudeness brings the whole world down. Sure, these comparisons are mostly harmless, but this is the sort of thing that can escalate. I believe I've mentioned before being disgusted seeing someone reply to a Gaia post about Twilight (in the Twilight forum), "I don't know you, but I hope you die a horrible death." Seriously? Wishing a horrible death on someone for what kind of fiction they enjoy? What really upset me, though was when, not too long ago, a close friend posted something telling fans of Taylor Swift to either shoot themselves or unfriend her. This is a friend whom I love to no end and always saw as a very accepting person. This post scared me. It told me that even people whom I loved and respected could have this kind of hatred in them for such ridiculous reasons.

You want to use your anger and hatred? Great. Channel them into important things. Fight inequality, oppression, starvation, sickness, bullying, cruelty, abuse, genocide. Don't waste your power of anger on young adult books and pop stars. And if you want to show someone a love story that you think is better than Twilight, just tell them how great it is. You don't need to bring up how much you hate something else to make your loved thing look better. Or if you do, it's not that great in the first place.